After years of heartbreak, the Blazers franchise deserves something special, J.A. Adande of ESPN.com writes. The team has dealt with repeated disappointment on the court and recently the tragic loss of fan favorite Jerome Kersey. Here’s more from the Northwest Division..
- In this week’s mailbag, Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post writes that he likes what the Nuggets did at the trade deadline by getting a first-round choice from Portland and then unloading JaVale McGee‘s salary. Dempsey writes that it was never a realistic expectation for Denver to blow up their roster at the deadline and he expects bigger fireworks to go down when we approach the draft.
- Sixers coach Brett Brown admires how the Thunder were put together, Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Daily News writes. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for [Thunder GM] Sam Presti; I worked with him for many years,” said Brown, who worked with Presti in San Antonio. “In many levels, I pay attention to this program as much as any on how could we learn from the great things that they have done and things that they may have done differently.”
- The Nuggets picked up their second win under interim coach Melvin Hunt when they topped the Wolves 100-85 on Wednesday night. When asked if he expected that kind of energy out of Denver, Wolves veteran Kevin Garnett told reporters, including Nicki Jhabvala of The Denver Post, “No. To be honest, they quit on Brian Shaw. I thought they’d quit again, A quitter is a quitter. That was my take on that. If you got any kind of self-pride about your future, then you want to anticipate someone playing hard. But, no, I wasn’t really concerned about the Denver Nuggets or how they were going to come out. I was more concerned about us, and us going forward and being better.”
- Pacers forward David West recently said that Shaw was fired because the Nuggets don’t have “grown-ups” on the roster and Denver forward Wilson Chandler doesn’t necessarily disagree, as Chris Tomasson writes for The Denver Post.
- Hunt is excited to be at the Nuggets‘ helm, but this isn’t how he wanted to get his big break, as Jhabvala writes.